Frank Turek “I was Googled, I was outed, I was fired, for being somebody who has a traditional marriage viewpoint.”

Dr Frank Turek is a leading and distinguished management skills expert, who has trained top executives for some of America’s biggest firms. He is also a Christian and he has written three books. “Legislating Morality”, “I Dont have enough Faith to be an Atheist” and most recently “Correct, not Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everybody.”

He argues, “Marriage is recognized by the government because it brings forth the next generation. Marriage at its core is procreative. We understand that some marriages are not procreative but the only ones that are are between a man and a woman.”

For many years, Dr Turek has worked training managers for Cisco. His presentations were always highly rated and got positive feedback and excellent results.

During the last session, a student found out Dr Turek had written a book defending traditional marriage. The student decided to sneak on him and denounce him in an utterly creepy and abhorrent manner. He went to the Human Resources and said -”Frank’s class is excellent but he doesn’t live up to Cisco values because he wrote this book….”

I got a phone call during a break. The human resources director told him, “Frank, we’ve got to fire you…because you wrote that book against same-sex marriage”.

Even people who were liberal thought this was an injustice. Of course the HR director had not even read Frank’s book. Not even the student who complained had read it. They just thought anyone who wrote a book in favour of traditional marriage was a criminal.

Frank’s wife was afraid that he might lose more clients if he went public about Cisco, but it happened even before that.

A few days before he went public about Cisco he was about to start doing his eighth session training managers for the Bank of America where he had worked previously with good results. The director rang him and said that there had been a complaint.

“Somebody just googled your name and found out that you wrote this book against same-sex marriage. We can’t employ you….”

Frank says, “We need to expose this intolerance, – it’s un-American to say that you have to have a certain political view in order to work in the United States of America. It’s unacceptable to say that you’ve got to have a certain political view in order to be able to work in the USA. I am willing to work with anyone. Real tolerance and diversity means that despite the fact that you inevitably might disagree with people about certain political and moral issues, you will work together with them in a very cordial and professional manner. That’s what inclusion and diversity should be – it’s not that way any more… If you don’t agree with this narrow view that same-sex marriage should be put into law, you’re called a bigot, you’re called a homophobe, you’re not even allowed to work. This is un-American and unacceptable… The founding fathers believed in liberty for all. They pledged their lives, their sacred honor for religious freedom. Many of them were killed for political and religious freedom!

But now Christians are afraid to speak up. If we don’t start speaking up, we’re going to lose our ability even to make a living in this country. “

VGB says “This is disgraceful intolerance. This is the new McCarthyism. Complain to Rob Lloyd, head of Cisco and complain to the Bank of America. Tell them that this is gay bullying and it is totally unacceptable.”

I want to bring to your attention a recent decision made by your HR team that I think does not reflect your leadership of Cisco. Dr. Frank Turek was fired as a vendor for his political and religious views, even though those views were never mentioned or expressed during his work at Cisco.

By way of background, Dr. Turek is an eight-year veteran of the United States Navy. He and his wife have two sons serving in the United States Air Force. They defend our Constitutional rights and appreciated your personal support of Senator John McCain in the last general election.

Given your Republican leanings, I know you do not believe that free speech and religion rights vanish when one works with Cisco. I know that you do not believe that all political conservatives, Jews, Christians, Mormons and Muslims should be fired for their deeply held beliefs. But that is how the Cisco policy of “inclusion” was applied to Dr. Turek.

In 2008, Dr. Turek was hired by Cisco to design and conduct a leadership and teambuilding program for about fifty managers with your Remote Operations Services team. The program took about a year to conduct, during which he also conducted similar sessions for another business unit within Cisco. That training earned such high marks that in 2010 he was asked to design a similar program for about 200 managers within Global Technical Services. Ten separate eight-hour sessions were scheduled.

The morning after completing the seventh session earlier this year, a manager in that session —who was one of the better students in that class—phoned in a complaint. It had nothing to do with content of the course or how it was conducted. In fact, the manager commented that the course was “excellent” as did most who participated. His complaint regarded Dr. Turek’s political and religious views that were never mentioned during class, but that the manager learned by “googling” Dr. Turek after class.

The manager identified himself as gay and was upset that Dr. Turek had written this book providing evidence that maintaining our current marriage laws would be best for the country. Although the manager didn’t read the book, he said that the author’s view was inconsistent with “Cisco values” and could not be tolerated. (Dr. Turek is aware of this because he was in the room when his call came in.) The manager then contacted an experienced HR professional at Cisco who had Dr. Turek fired that day without ever speaking to him. The HR professional also commended the manager for “outing” Dr. Turek.

This firing had nothing to do with course content—the program earned very high marks from participants. It had nothing to do with budget constraints—the original contract was paid in full recently. A man was fired simply because of his personal political and religious beliefs—beliefs that are undoubtedly shared by thousands of your very large and diverse workforce.

I assume the intent of Cisco’s value of “inclusion and diversity” is to ensure that people in that diverse workforce will work together cordially and professionally even when they inevitably disagree on certain political, moral or religious questions. Please note that Dr. Turek agrees with that value and was demonstrating it. The manager and HR professional were not. Dr. Turek was being inclusive working with them. They were being exclusive by refusing to work with him, even though his viewpoint was never discussed during his work at Cisco. (Ironically, the people who say they are fighting for “tolerance” are often the most intolerant!).

I have a couple of important questions: First, what action would have been taken had Dr. Turek been a proponent of same-sex marriage but a conservative employee had complained? Second, given your support of Senator McCain, a same-sex marriage opponent, are you qualified to be working at Cisco?

My purpose in writing is simple: I am asking you to correct a policy of “inclusion” that is currently being applied as a policy of exclusion.

Dr. Turek has been excluded now from earning a living with your company. Moreover, he is concerned about the thousands of conservatives, religious and secular, who are employees of Cisco. He has spoken to several who live in constant fear that they will similarly be “outed” for their deeply held religious and/or political convictions. In my view, such totalitarian political correctness is immoral and un-American, and I doubt it engenders a climate of diversity and collaboration you so eloquently champion.

I thank you for your attention to this matter and look forward to your prompt reply. I can be reached at adams_mike@hotmail.com. I intend to publish your response next week.